Unclaimed Package

Louis Dumkowski decides to face the loan shark to whom he owes money, and surprisingly is forgiven and hired, along with his friend Cleatus Washington. He even gets a girl friend for the first time, and that’s when his troubles really start.

“You joking, right?”

“Naw,” Cleatus said. “I ain’t jokin’. You go knock a girl up; the only right thing to do is marry her. Can’t have no baby bein’ born a bastard. ‘Sides, how she gonna hold her head up with her friends you don’t marry her?”

“Okay,” Louis said after a long pause. “I guess that’s what I gotta do. Soon as she gets here I’m gonna ask her.”

“That’s my man.”

Ruby, who’d been listening at the living room door, rushed in and pulled Louis into her arms, nestling his head against her ample bosom. “Oh, Louis,” She said. “I knew you’d do the right thing. I just knew my boy would do the right and proper thing. I’m so proud of you.” She looked over the top of Louis’s head at Cleatus. “My boy is lucky to have a friend like you, Cleatus.”

Cleatus was saved from having to put on a modest act by the ringing of the doorbell. Ruby released Louis and rushed to the door. She came back in a few seconds with a thin blonde in tow. She was about an inch taller than Louis; thin of face, with a bit of a bump in her aquiline nose, and watery blue eyes that gave her the appearance of someone about to break into tears. She was still wearing the pink thigh-length dress with blue apron of the café in which she worked; appropriately named “Pink and Blue Café,” for reasons that no one remembered. Her lank blonde hair drooped from beneath the pink and blue cap all employees of Pink and Blue Café were required to wear.